Eastern European Chart Music

somehow i never really got into Azis' stuff, love the videos of course but no tune of his ever seems to stick with me...

2012 chalga* i'm digging at the moment:

* (well, Bulgarians mostly call it 'pop-folk' nowadays, at least those who actually enjoy it afaict - i'm no expert but i'm guessing it's similiar in that regard to Serbian folk, where haters keep on using the catch-all term 'turbo-folk' even though it's tied to a bygone era/style)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzT6OLDCjsI

quality Rihanna video ripoff there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyC1MOGFJsM

Costi in his imperial phase, effortlessly fucking around with the song structure... of course a less charitable reading would be that it's a tuneless mess! whatever, i love it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDRkzsV-YLk

one big reason i love BG pop-folk is its caribbean lilt and here it's very much in effect - reminds me of lovelorn R&B-leaning dancehall/dancehall-leaning R&B, stuff like Chrissy & Vybz' "Wasting My Time"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f07TtmSJZo8

admittedly the production is a bit on the shoddy side but the tune is tops

as for Serbian folk - this is my fave atm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v9XA7hyiHE

this is also huge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AMVpTw2fU

oh yeah, digging the new Neda Ukraden single too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raDH-CiSXUY

These are fantastic!

The Mariya single is particularly good - Costi is a remarkable producer.

The Goga Sekulic song is absolutely ridiculous but i love it.

I agree that Azis' tunes tend not to stick in the memory for too long but his voice is terrific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-gXTixCZFo&feature=player_embedded#!

I'm quite interested in Ivan Dorn (Ukraine) at the moment. Not 100% sold on the songs but he has potential. There's definitely a gap in the market for his kind of stuff there.

Are Depeche Mode still gods there? Does this mean if somebody hosts a Depeche Mode-influenced song for Eurovision, that song is likely to in?

Depeche Mode are still huge. I get the impression people in the UK underestimate their popularity, not just in Eastern Europe but in Germany, France and the US.

There's a nice Depeche Mode theme bar in Tallinn.

enjoying that Nyusha upthread, will check out the album

russian music - and ex-SSSR in general - is among the biggest casualties of me not having the time to check out everything i'd like to, so just fire away with the youtubes

will also rep for this on the carribean-flavoured chalga tip, love how it's so gentle and light while also being kinda goofy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OOqsvxIejE

The Desislava single is very charming.

Russian and Ukrainian pop used to have a bewildering number of new releases every month but it seems to have slowed down a lot recently. Most of the songs i was listening to in Kyiv in November were still getting heavy rotation on TV in St Petersburg last month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1aVy19cb3Y

Mama Lyuba by Serebro has been the big, big Russian hit recently and has spawned hundreds of parody videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUhdYe4Jhms

Derevya by Vintazh is still very popular at the moment as well.

On the Ukrainian side, Vera Brezhneva's solo career is really taking off. Her album has been out for a while but it's getting a lot of attention in Russia at the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec8Yui1PmTs&ob=av3e

She was in the band V.I.A Gra, back in the days they were amazing. This is one of her solo singles with Dan Balan from O-Zone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE1kxsuD1ys

Svetlana Loboda's doing pretty well , also.

I like that someone has taken the time to do a chart of who was in V.I.A Gra and when. It's not easy to track.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/0e2c249c8fb3607123e31a7806109e2a.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR25ZMhZeOY

Just noticed that Iza Lach (Poland) put out a video for the single Chochiaz Raz a few weeks ago. Her album was my favourite of 2011.

Piece from The Guardian today mentioning a few of the Russian ones upthread:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/mar/14/pop-musik-sound-charts-russia

that Serebro track!!!

so amazing

haven't watched Viva Polska in months - is silly PL electro-rap still a thing? didn't mind whenever this came on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvtb1np-Pt8&ob=av2e

Cool thread - I only ever hear any of this stuff in a Eurovision context.

Seems to be a lot of commercial house and big ballads on Viva Polska at the moment, rather than electro-rap. Monopol had a new single, Imprezza, out a while ago but it's not a patch on Zodiak Na Melanzu from 2009.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx4VAJQx3LY&feature=related

I guess the big rap-dance song of the last year was Sexualna by Mirami, who are Ukrainian but were really popular in Poland as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f08IwbowGF4&ob=av2e

so many things i loved about Viva Polska... keeping Kat Deluna's "Run the Show" in heavy rotation for months and months after the rest of the world forgot it ever existed! caning Linus Loves' way-beyond-awesome remix of Pixie Lott's "Mama Do" while ignoring the crappy original! lapping up everything - and i really mean EVERYTHING - RedOne comes up with!

otoh i like-but-not-love most of their homegrown stuff, this Ke$ha pastiche is probably the last thing i fell hard for and that was, like, two years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5pbJnbTAs0

Ha! I like that!

There was another Guardian piece on Polish pop last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f08IwbowGF4&ob=av2e

Dance-pop from Poland isn't really capturing my attention that much at the moment but they have lots of really good chart stars who are drawing from slightly more left-field sources. I adore Monika Brodka and Iza Lach and like Kasia Nosowska a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ycOABMpIyE

The Maria album is great, btw. This is another one that stood out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dliELOPqyG0

Not sure how i managed to repost the Mirami video, was going for:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/nov/17/pop-musik-sound-charts-poland

No mention of Latvia's Brainstorm yet? This song came third in the 2000 Eurovision Song Contest. I've loved it ever since a dark-haired Latvian beauty put it on a mix CD she made me :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCUFM8etFv4

enjoyed your Russian piece in the Guardian, SV! "Vybirat chudo" is wonderful - will definitely give Nyusha's albuma a spin this weekend

Maria's album is good, yes... it's not uncommon for chalga divas to make a video for every song off of an album, and i'm grateful that she did one for "Game Over" - on its own i find it to be a little flat, decent "On the Floor" xerox but not much else, it's one of those dance songs that comes alive for me only when i see some actual bodies moving to it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB0XfvUdZ6Q

Preslava's album is also worth checking out - no masterpiece or anything but lots of good stuff throughout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay0UimiDDtw

excellent thread you guys, moar plz

love Мария's 'Мръсни помисли'

hi rtc! other Maria tunes you need to check out imo: Nai dobria, Dai jega, Mojte zadrujki (all prod by Costi btw)

new + new to me Bulgarian stuff i've been into recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CuOjp-WAQE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-xE3-4IuRE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4wV2mXC3RQ

also this somewhat underproduced but still rather enjoyable Serbian jam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_rH8vHpRbw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIF-Kye0mME

May as well include Turkish pop as it's stylistically so similar to lots of other things in the thread. I love Atiye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXe9J56xDMs

Balkan influence spreading to Ukrainian novelty dance-pop. Featuring Aliona from V.I.A Gra mk.1

Viral pop comes to Russia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjB7xgkbEGE&feature=related

Anzhela London's blowing up on VK like Rebecca Black at the moment. The songs are more interesting though. It's kind of a compelling home-made mixture of silly witch house signifiers and gritty Chika-Iz-Permi-style club pop. It's a long way from being good but it's something i'll keep an eye on.

On a completely different note, i'm really pleased that my new friends Charlie Straight (like a much better Czech version of Brainstorm) will be playing in London next month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iGpTxiDMCA

It's Poland week at the Guardian. Any time i can turn to the front page of the music section and see a big picture of Iza Lach, i'm happy. There's a nice blog piece from a Polish DJ here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jun/07/polish-music-piotr-metz#start-of-comments

May be more stuff tomorrow. I'm not sure.

I'm completely obsessed with Russia's Chika Iz Permi at the moment. It's half affectionate parody of club culture in the regions and half fantastic dead-eyed techno-pop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK0xcXDMmV8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXUfBlvivbI

Also, new Brodka!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAmryfO10YY

love this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bebIibBmCNo

Yep, that's really good.

Magazin have been on quite a roll recently - "Jos se ne bi udala", "Kemija" and "Maslacak" are all great too

it's the main project of Tonci Huljic, one of the biggest Croatian hitmakers ever, and it's amazing for how long he's been on top of his game - obv with a career spanning three decades he's had his dry spells, but whenever i wrote him off as a has-been he soon came back with a vengeance

he formed Magazin way back at the beginning of the eighties, they've released tons of classic singles ("Suze biserne" is an all-time jam) and they get a new singer every several years or so... Jelena Rozga, the 96-06 Magazin girl, has had a super successful solo career with mostly Huljic-penned material - 'Bizuterija' is indisputably the biggest Croatian hit of the last few years, so omnipresent that its very own title has become common shorthand for 'sheeple pabulum' ;) don't really rate that one tbh - but "Gospe moja" is quite something:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ1f2gSRWKs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxIHGSFWAWE

kinda haven't been feeling Romanian stuff this year but this one is wonderful

I like that a lot.

Dunja Ilic has a new video out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS3FgungOg8

any Russian/ex-USSR tips of the, uh, non-electrogoth variety? ;)

feeling this Romanian-flavored Serbo jam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VATjETeXf0

Will be in Moscow on the hunt for new things next week!

The new Fabrika stuff sounds exactly like the old Fabrika stuff, which isn't a bad thing in my book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sys_kbvc_b4

thank you for turning me on to iza lach and brodka! anything more in this vein super-appreciated! also interested in any other polish music recommendations (including non-pop; have started with the guardian article) but should probably start a new thread for this... did a search but seems under-represented on ilm.

The two big stars that Brodka and Lach are most influenced by are probably Kasia Nosowska and Maria Peszek. They might be good starting points. Julia Marcell's not bad either. Kasia Stankiewicz's Extrapop album from a few years ago is also worth a listen.

I can't remember if i posted links at the time but the Guardian did a week of Polish music in the summer. Piotr Metz's article on the new polish scene might be another good place to start digging.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/series/sounds-of-europe-poland

thanks! sounds like some great stuff in there.

Domestic CDs appear to be pretty much dead in Russia. I asked a girl in Soyuz how many Russian new releases they stock per month and she said, "maybe one or two". Everyone's clearing as much stock a they can and you can feel the dust on your fingers as you flick through the racks. It's the same situation in Ukraine, unfortunately. Five years ago you'd have had at least a dozen new chart CDs every couple of weeks.

I don't have access to Muz.TV at the moment, only MTV, which is never the best guide, but they're still playing stuff from 2010 on regular rotation. So much of the new stuff around is internet / radio only.

iza lach has a mixtape and 5-album deal with snoop dogg

http://izalach.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QkLx9v90w8

(zycieboli, just curious - anyone I can recognize from twitter?)

yeah, just came here to check if Iza's been already mentioned and it's so nice to see she has! here's my fav off of her summer mixtape:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lvoHxKWuFU

and a choice cut from Krzyk (ShariVari - I remember you including the album on your 2011 ballot!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl2Gew1XExQ

keep an eye for her incoming album, as far as I know a few great tunes are to be included on the tracklist, gonna be great

on balance i'm going for brodka > iza lach but all of this is just <3

just one more thing - don't want to go all Iza stan at once, but I've got to mention the vast collection of non-album songs (mostly sung in English) she uploads on her Soundcloud, from old stuff like Million (one of her best songs IMO) to newer ones (for instance, Lemon) they're all worth a listen!

wow, "million" is something else

Really pleased the last Nyusha single got a good reception on The Singles Jukebox (7.67!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMdvYgW-0cI

Have been listening to Eva Polna's Ya Tebya Tozhe Nyet a lot too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UEcXOnDCPw

I think AATW has picked up Serebro's Gun for a UK release after it was a huge hit in Italy.

find their english grating and thought (admittedly on just one listen) that "Gun" was a poor "Mama Lover" xerox, so didn't bother checking their english album... should i?

I quite like Gun but it's not a great album. Most of the songs are English versions of Russian singles (Sladko, etc) so it doesn't really bring much of value.

she'll be at klub wytwórnia in łódź. there are a few other polish dates, too. wrocław tonight, then a couple of nights in kraków next week.

Great. Let me know how she is. I'll probably catch her London show.

so, she was basically great, catching her show very much advised, especially if overt and theatrical acts of blasphemy + polish-language freestyle covers of "sabotage" are anywhere near your thing.

Will book my ticket immediately.

Rats! Just realised I can't make it. Thanks though!

brodka! tonight! so excited!

She was great!

yes, she was! "granda" was crazy from where i was standing.

I think that got the biggest response of the night. I brought a friend who had never heard anything by her before and he was hugely impressed. Hopefully she'll draw a good crowd at The Great Escape.

i suppose that was always guaranteed. i also brought a friend who said it was the most fun he'd had at a gig for a long time. i'd like to know a bit more about the two songs she played in the middle of the set that i didn't recognise... she played them before in łódź, too, but they aren't familiar to me. covers? new songs?

One of them was a cover of My Girlfriend's Boyfriend by Her Space Holiday. Not sure about the other one.

My Girlfriend's Boyfriend was her debut single in Poland (Dziewczyna Mojego Chłopaka, iirc.

ah, interesting, thanks! i'm not totally familiar with her pre-granda material. hopefully the other one will be something new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7EUnomoM00

New Ivan Dorn.

nice! very skeletal, reminds me of something from late eighties/early nineties house music but can't quite put my finger on it.

Have been listening to Mela Koteluk quite a lot recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_lA6hV1Ag

Not quite in the same class as Brodka / Lach / Peszek but the album has a lot going for it.

Also picked up Kari Amarian's Daddy Says I'm Special this week. It isn't hugely original and is a little too twee in places but it's growing on me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK220gJvt5k

i'm back! sorry for being away for a bit.

koteluk passed me by, i saw posters for a gig last week but didn't go. see what you mean about the track... nice enough, but isn't really grabbing me immediately. i'll check out the lp. haven't really heard much new/exciting going on lately.... brodka has gone all but awol, i'm hoping against hope for iza to ditch the snoop dogg thing and go back to making "kszyk 2", and peszek's still touring so nothing much new happening there. in terms of new artists, it's all a bit flat, too :/

I have come to the conclusion that Fabrika's Ne Rodis' Krasivoi is my favourite single of 2013.

http://youtu.be/HuSf1UcFRq0

Some good albums in Afisha's run-down of the best Russian records of the year, though most aren't particularly poppy:

http://volna.afisha.ru/sounds/25-luchshih-russkih-albomov-goda/

The Tesla Boy record is OK but i was much more impressed with Chikiss, Alpha-Beta, Lemondey and Ishome.

oh my, that Fabrika is seriously lovely

belatedly jammin 2 dis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzcf91BVOTM

Brodka + Peszek + Nosowska together in London this Saturday!

^^^^ may be greatest concert I have ever seen. All three completely amazing.

Being repeated in Dublin tomorrow;

http://thehelix.ie/nosowska-maria-peszek-brodka-unique-dublin-gig/

Tickets are moderately expensive (45 Euro) but so worth it.

Monika was as wonderful as ever. Maria Peszek was a revelation - I love her records but live she's extraordinary. Nosowska is a stunning performer. Just a total privilege to see all three of them and a reminder how lucky I am to live in one of the few cities outside of Poland where you can be in a crowd of 2500 people singing along to Varsovie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84kbG2ExdZs

New Nyusha video ^^^^^

Also totally sold on the 27th line-up of V.I.A Gra, or whatever we're up to now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqEnGKFaMOE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqL2HgNJL7I

Really love 16 by Dasha Charusha. The video is somewhat O_o, particularly the first half but the artist, stylist and director are all women which makes it marginally more wistful / nostalgic and marginally less creepy.

The new Julia Marcell album is good. Closer to the dominant Polish-indie-pop idiom (Mela Koteluk, Maria Peszek, etc) than the last one, which i remember being synthier, but with a lot of personality and some sharp lyrics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RChaKK7e0xA

New Dasha Shults material is really lovely:

https://soundcloud.com/snegiri-music/dashashults-for-him2